Report: Gorsuch Promoting Diversity at Supreme Court

According to studies, most Supreme Court justices choose white men as their clerks. President Trump's nominee is bucking that trend.

By NTK Staff | 04.16.2018 @5:00pm

According to a report from the liberal magazine Slate on Monday, Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s appointee to the Supreme Court, is ushering in a new era of diversity at the nation’s highest court.

Slate cited studies showing the overwhelming number of law clerks at the Supreme Court, selected by judges, are white men. But Gorsuch has made an effort to make his aides look more like the United States at large.

This summer, Tobi Merritt Edwards Young will begin working for Gorsuch as a law clerk. “Young is believed to be the first enrolled citizen of a Native American tribe to clerk for a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court,” Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern reported.

Young’s hiring is part of a trend for Gorsuch:

Of the seven clerks Gorsuch has hired over his first two terms, three are nonwhite. Sadly, only one is female. But with his selection of Young, that number is already on the rise.

…

Just 12 percent of clerks who’ve served for Ginsburg and Justice Clarence Thomas since 2005 are racial minorities. Only one black person has clerked for Ginsburg (who joined the court in 1993) and the same is true of Justice Samuel Alito (who joined in 2006). A mere 8 percent of clerks hired by Chief Justice John Roberts (who joined in 2005) are racial or ethnic minorities.

Stern wasn’t always so high on Gorsuch. In a September article on Slate, he wrote, “It’s sickening to see [Gorsuch] embrace a jurisprudence that excuses white supremacy in the criminal justice system so soon after his paean to equality.” It appears the author may be reconsidering his characterization of Gorsuch’s views on race.